“We must act quickly to ensure that our state has the opportunity to take advantage of the amazing advancements in new nuclear technology that have occurred over the past couple of decades,” Rezin said. “The longer we wait to end this moratorium, Illinois falls further behind the rest of the nation.”

Leading Democrats, including Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois and progressive Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington, are demanding that the White House designate the Palestinian territories a “Temporary Protected Status,” permitting foreign nationals to stay in the United States to avoid the escalating war in the Middle East.

Senate Minority Leader John Curran said Republicans would accept the changes proposed by Democrats. “It does shrink it but it continues it and we support that compromise and we support the movement to continue this program going forward,” he said.

“The existing statute does contemplate the state police dealing with this problem and allows them to amend rules on an ongoing basis. They have that authority in the statute,” Sen. Bill Cunningham said. “So I think that problem was anticipated. And that’s how the law intends to deal with that problem.”

The unemployment fund was about $4.5 billion in the red at its lowest point, but lawmakers approved multiple cash infusions to pay off the debt to avoid further massive tax hikes on employers. But much of the questioning for the state Department of Employment Security Tuesday centered on whether it was ready to respond to future crisis events, potentially driven by global political strife.

‘The MAGA agenda isn’t an agenda about freedom – it’s about fear,’ Pritzker said from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) post 1991 in Miami, Florida. ‘Everyone in this Republican primary believes in this agenda.’ ‘They might try to dress it up in different ways – in boots, in high heels or a red tie – but it’s all the same,’ he said to laughter from the few attending the press conference along with a room-full of press.

Both S&P and Moody’s upgraded Illinois earlier this year, reflecting the credit rating bureaus’ belief that the state’s once-dire economic outlook and financial decisions are steadily improving.

“In addition to building up reserves, the state has also actively reduced various long-term and budgetary liabilities, most prominently its unpaid bills, and laid a more sustainable fiscal foundation,” said Fitch’s report on the upgrade. “Illinois reduced its accounts payable balance by approximately $1 billion over the course of fiscal 2023 to less than $500 million, a level the state has not seen in more than two decades and continuing a pattern of using unappropriated surpluses to pay down bills.”

Dennis LaComb, of the Technology & Manufacturing Association: “According to the Illinois Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse, more than 1,300 businesses in the Chicago metro region are defendants in (Biometric Information Privacy Act) cases. Beyond that, a staggering 57% of active BIPA cases in DuPage County have been initiated by just four national law firms.”

See our column here on the law.

When Joe Biden picked Chicago as the venue for his party’s 2024 convention, the thought was that this heavily unionized Democratic city provided a perfect stage to showcase how Bidenomics was making life better for American workers. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who’d lobbied the president hard, was thrilled. Chicago is “your kind of town,” he told the president. Suddenly that theme is in jeopardy.

Chinese battery companies enjoy significantly higher margins abroad, according to Goldman Sachs. For example, the bank expects around 70% of the earnings of Gotion, to come from exports or overseas production by 2025. The company’s plant in Germany has started production this year and it is building a $2 billion battery factory in Illinois.

The same country now protecting Hamas’s senior leaders has donated billions to American universities, particularly Northwestern.

Gov. JB Pritzker recently accused Republicans of regressing freedom within the United States and has started a new organization aimed at promoting pro-choice policies across multiple states, including Ohio, while combating “the right-wing extremists who want to take us backwards.”